"Betty Ford Galaxy" of the Throttle Rockets cuts a menacing pose while skating onto the track to face Rat City Rollergirls rival and championship finalist Grave Danger in a matchup at Hangar 27 in Magnuson Park.
Photo: David Ryder/Special To The P-I

"Betty Ford Galaxy" of the Throttle Rockets cuts a menacing pose...

Sockit Wenches skater "Jackie Hammer" cools off with a bag of ice on the bench between teammates "Miss Fortune" and "MoYaDown."
Photo: David Ryder/Special To The P-I

The wide windows at Magnuson Park's Hangar 27 are rattling as a crowd of nearly 3,000 thunders out applause. It has just witnessed a major upset, a fight, an ejection, some slippery skating and some serious endurance.

Never mind the fishnet pantyhose. This is roller derby, baby, and the Rat City Rollergirls haven't just Xanadu-ed into the hearts of Seattle's mainstream -- they have jammed their way onto its sports landscape.

Serious sport

The makeup doubles as war paint and the catchy nicknames stick, but hours of speedskating training, along with helmets, mouth guards, knee and elbow pads tell you this is serious.

"This is a dangerous activity," said Tamaccio, who coaches the Grave Danger team with Nathan Hemphill. "You have to be well-trained. You have to know what you're doing."

When the league began in 2004, the know-how wasn't necessarily there. The league's four teams practiced at Tamaccio's rink, and she watched with a trained eye.

"They really had no idea how to skate. But they had the will to do it. Finally I went up and just asked, 'Do you want some help?' " she said.

Tamaccio's three daughters soon got into the act, and a family passion was born, but roller derby actually has its roots during the Great Depression.

It hit a peak in the late 1950s that ran through the mid-70s. The original "Roller Derby" was syndicated to 120 television stations and bouts were big draws, with an indoor record of 19,507 at Madison Square Garden in 1970 and an outdoor mark of 50,118 at Chicago's Comiskey Park in 1972.

While different advents of the sport, including a theatrical version in 1961, have come and gone, there are currently 38 leagues in the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.

"When it first came out, they were heavy with the show, but it doesn't take long for brains to kick in and the girls to say, 'I want to win,' " Tamaccio said.

The new wave of grass-roots, all-female leagues has become the rage -- flat tracks, not-for-profit leagues, coast-to-coast competition and one hell of a time.

Dedication required

Meredith Slota saw an ad in The Stranger in the summer of 2004. Lilly Warner, Rahel Cook and Katie Merrell had recently founded the Rat City Rollergirls and were looking for all comers to join the action.

Slota had been an athlete at Kirkland's Juanita High School. She and a friend went to a tryout.

"I was terrified of everybody. They were way cooler than I was, had more tattoos," said Slota, 27.

"But it didn't take long (to realize) this is an amazing community. It is a really fun game to play, and now I couldn't live without it."

At the tryouts, athletes were critiqued on their skating ability, aggressiveness and attitude. A draft took place and the women were divvied up among four teams -- Derby Liberation Front (DLF), Grave Danger, Sockit Wenches and Throttle Rockets.

Slota became "Kitty Kamikaze" and is a blocker for DLF.

There was no travel that first year, but in addition to practicing and competing, the Rollergirls committed to building the league.

"There is about nine to 10 hours of practice and then about 30 extra. I'm the ticketing manager. It's a serious time commitment," Slota said.

Others are committed to at least six hours a week of "league business," which includes keeping up the Web site, producing a newsletter, marketing, scheduling practice, facility coordination and other duties. Most go above and beyond.

"When you put this much into it, when you practice this much, it rules your life," said Jessica Howe of the Sockit Wenches.

Howe, 29, earned a master's degree in robotics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a project manager at CoCo Communications. Also known as "Miss Fortune," she is the league's co-MVP this season.

"It takes diving into this 100 percent. The women who do this are pretty heady, dedicated people who really strive to win," she said.

Pain and injury are part of that dedication.

Eleanor "Ruby Red" Trainor retired from the sport last season.

"When I started this sport, I was healthy," said Trainor, 32. "Two blown shoulders, a knee, an ankle ... that was about it. Our average age hovers around 30. Regardless of age, most of us have seen major injuries. You have to be a rubber band to do this."

Warnick, 29, said she has had more X-rays in the past two years than in all the non-derby years of her life combined.

"It's so different from anything I've done in terms of being fulfilling, so the benefit far outweighs the pain," she said.

Money is also part of the commitment. Players pay monthly dues to cover practice facility rentals.

The league is actually profiting through ticket sales for the bouts, which have been held this year at Hangar 27, the Everett Events Center, Qwest Event Center and KeyArena. The latter -- the "BumberBout," held last Labor Day weekend as part of Bumbershoot -- recorded about 20,000 door clicks.

That profit, Slota said, goes right into the next bout.

Fundraisers and sponsorships pay for travel. The Sockit Wenches traveled to Atlanta to play a team there in July, and the Rat City All-Stars will play in the WFTDA Championship, the Texas Shootout, in Austin on Sept. 29.

Game a big hit

Slota and Howe met up last Saturday in one of the league's semifinal bouts.

In front of a capacity crowd of nearly 3,000 -- half of which could be found in bleachers behind a chain-link fence in the beer garden -- Slota's DLF was a runaway favorite, a team with a 3-0 league record squaring off against the 0-3 Wenches.

"I had no idea this was so big in Seattle," said Katherine Murto, 23, of Bellingham. "This is a great crowd."

Murto said she is "into roller skating," but the crowd is far from just young and expert. The diversity, in fact, is astounding -- men and women of all ages, families, children on skates of their own, rocker boys and lesbians.

Ken McLean, a dentist from Bellevue, celebrated his 75th birthday at the bout.

"I used to watch it on TV when I was young and had no idea they did it here," he said. "It's very entertaining."

The crowd got behind the underdog Wenches, too.

Within the first few minutes, Slota took out Britta "Drew Blood" Lyle with a trip. Lyle told Slota it was a "nice hit" as she pushed herself from the ground. She later had X-rays that revealed four fractured vertebrae.

After the break, the intensity cranked up a bit. There's history here -- last season, the Wenches defeated DLF for the league title.

Greer, a 36-year-old mother of two, had already shown her competitive streak this week. In a practice scrimmage earlier Tuesday, she argued with a referee and verbally sparred with a member of Grave Danger.

Flying around a corner in the semifinal, she was taken out by DLF jammer Monique "Ann R. Kissed" Zampera, a former Portland State basketball player who prepped at Bishop Blanchet High School.

Greer wasn't happy and obstructed Zampera's ability to get up. In a whirl of skates, bodies and obscenities, punches began to fly. Zampera, a co-MVP, was ejected. Greer rolled on to collect critical points and lead the Wenches to a 93-83 upset.

"She's the one everyone loves to hate," Warnick said of Greer.

Greer played soccer and ran track in high school. She still plays soccer, which might be more easy to explain to her daughter, 3, and son, 4.

"They think I go roller skating. If they were older, though, I wouldn't mind (them attending)," she said.